1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a parameter setting apparatus and method for AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture (AUTOSAR)-based software and, more particularly, to a parameter setting apparatus and method for AUTOSAR-based software, which may lead a user to set corresponding parameters at suitable time points depending on variant attributes of parameters set by an AUTOSAR-supporting development tool.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, owing to vehicle drivers' desires, legal, environmental, and social requirements, and environmental and technical efforts of vehicle manufactures, electric/electronic systems and software areas in all types of vehicles have varied. Consequently, for drivers' desires to enjoy Information Technology (IT) even in vehicles and for the safety and convenience of the drivers, electronic devices and software for operating them have become more and more complicated.
That is, an Electronic Control Unit (ECU) has performed the functionalities of information systems such as navigation or telematics, and the functionalities of vehicle body control, a power train system, engine control, and safety device control. The number of ECUs has gradually increased, and software has also expanded and become complicated. In order to overcome this complication, some ECUs are required to operate in cooperation with other ECUs, thus resulting in a situation in which wiring required for such cooperation has increased in geometrical progression. Consequently, in order to solve such a wiring problem for communication and the complication of software, and reduce faults, it is intended to establish AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture (AUTOSAR) standards and then solve the above problems.
In particular, AUTOSAR defines architectures for automotive electronics software, development methodology, Application Program Interfaces (APIs) for respective electronics applications, etc. Automotive electronics software architectures provided by AUTOSAR include the structures of applications, network architectures/communication data between ECUs on which applications are to be installed, the structures and setting methods of lower platform modules that support application software loaded into individual ECUs, etc. In order to implement such standards in actual software, AUTOSAR defines and provides metamodels required to describe products produced by each development methodology. In relation to this, Korean Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2010-0071361 discloses project management technology for software architecture modeling tools of AUTOSAR application software.
Parameters of products defined in the metamodels are set by an AUTOSAR configuration tool. Here, each of the parameters must be set at any one of three time points, that is, a pre-compile-time, a link-time, and a post-build-time, depending on the time point of setting. Such time points are designated as the attributes of parameters. In this case, AUTOSAR defines variant attributes depending on methods of configuring basic software (BSW) loaded into each ECU upon developing applications. Such variant attributes correspond to a kind of pre-set in which parameter subsets to be configured at specific time points among the parameters of a metamodel required for the design of a specific basic software module are predefined.
Such variant attributes are generally defined as variant-pre-compile, variant-link, or variant-post-build attributes. Here, parameters having a variant-pre-compile attribute must be set at a pre-compile-time, parameters having a variant-link attribute must be set at a pre-compile-time or at a link-time, and parameters having a variant-post-build attribute must be set at any one of a pre-compile-time, a link-time, and a post-build-time.
However, conventional management technologies for the software architecture modeling tools of AUTOSAR application software disclosed in Korean Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2010-0071361 do not provide a method of leading a user to set the corresponding parameters at suitable time points depending on the variant attributes of the parameters of a metamodel.